On Friday the palace of Westminster – seat of the UK government – closed its doors for the annual summer break and it may be that MPs had sun, sea, sand and those summer-holiday flights on the mind.
Buried beneath the traditional rush of early-day motions filed before the house on the last day of parliament (timing surely no coincidence) was one regarding Ryanair’s complaints record in which it was stated that MPs had been lobbied by frustrated Ryanair passengers who have found it impossible to get hold of the airline’s elusive and expensive complaints desk. MPs obviously thought about this subject for quite some time before coming up with the ingenious solution of naming and shaming Caroline Green, head of customer services at Ryanair. The early-morning motion read:
“She can be contacted at
[email protected] and the geographical telephone number for the company’s head office in Dublin is 00 353 1812 1212, which is cheaper than its high tariff 0871 number.”
To table an early-morning motion in the UK parliament costs around £300. One MP is quoted as saying: “Seldom, I feel, has taxpayers’ money been so splendidly spent.” Clearly, he is a Ryanair customer too!